The Russian Culture Question

This morning, I came across this, except in Important Stories. It is an interesting one and makes me reflect on the current moment in the United States as well, for there is a full-on attempt to control the culture and mold it to the needs of the state.

It is a feature, not a bug, of authoritarian spaces. First, let me give you the summary, and yes, I include a couple of sections of the interview. It is a remarkable piece, one that you should take the time to read in translation, even if machine translation:

📚🎙” My people commit evil.” Writer Mikhail Shishkin on the main enemy of Russian culture and its movement into a new space

Mikhail Shishkin is one of the most successful and famous contemporary Russian writers in the world. His novels “Venus Hair” and “The Letter Writer” are recognized masterpieces of world literature. Recently, Shishkin was recognized as a foreign agent, according to Ekaterina Shulman — for founding the independent literary prize “Dar”, which will be presented at the Berlin Book Fair. Here are the main points from his interview with Renat Davletgildeev.

About the occupying state

I have never hidden my attitude towards this bandit state. Herzen formulated it wonderfully that the Russian state has settled in the country as an occupation army . And this attitude as an…